Chương 11
Luke’s eyes moved to me.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Emma laughed once.
It was not amused.
“That’s his favorite kind of answer.”
She started toward the parking lot.
“Emma.”
She kept walking.
I followed.
The chair accelerated easily.
“Stop.”
She did.
Not because I ordered her.
Because she was furious enough to turn around.
“If I stay near you, what am I actually agreeing to?”
Luke stopped several yards away.
The guard looked elsewhere.
I stared at Emma.
The easy answer was to reassure her.
The honest answer was worse.
“My enemies may notice you.”
Her face changed.
“They may ask who you are.”
I continued.
“They may follow you.”
“Have they?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“No.”
Wind pressed her coat against her body.
“What happened to the man who shot you?”
“I told you.”
“No.”
She looked straight at me.
“You told me nobody was caught.”
I went still.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
For the first time since meeting her, I wanted her to look away.
She didn’t.
Behind us, the lake kept moving against the concrete shore.
Luke said nothing.
I could feel his attention on me.
Emma took one step closer.
“What happened to him, Danny?”
I looked at her and understood that whatever answer I gave next would decide whether she ever trusted me again.
“I don’t know who pulled the trigger.”
Emma held my gaze.
“That isn’t the same as saying you don’t know what happened.”
“No.”
Luke shifted behind me.
I could hear the gravel under his shoe.
I looked toward the lake because it was easier than looking at her.
“The man who arranged it was named Victor Sanz.”
Emma said nothing.
“He ran crews on the West Side.”
I kept my voice flat.
“Victor had been paying one of my people for information.”
“Luke?”
“No.”
Luke’s mouth tightened.
“It was a driver named Noel.”
I could still see Noel sitting in the back seat of a black sedan, crying so hard he could barely speak after we found the second phone taped beneath his dashboard.
“He gave Victor my schedule.”
Emma’s hands disappeared into her coat pockets.
“And Victor hired the sniper.”
“We believe so.”
“Believe?”
“We never proved who actually fired.”
She watched me carefully.
“What happened to Victor?”
I looked at Luke.
He looked away.
Emma noticed.
“Danny.”
“He disappeared.”
Her face went still.
“That sounds edited too.”
“It is.”
“Did you kill him?”
The question sat between us without decoration.
I could have lied.
A week earlier, I would have.
“No.”
She exhaled, but I raised a hand.
“Luke found him before I left the hospital.”
Her eyes moved to Luke.
Luke’s face hardened.
“What did you do?”
He answered before I could.
“I took him somewhere private.”
Emma’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“And he told us enough.”
“Then what?”
Luke glanced at me.
I hated him for making the choice mine.
“He was beaten,” I said.
Emma looked at me again.
“By you?”
“I couldn’t get out of bed.”
The bitterness in my own voice surprised me.
“That doesn’t answer whether you ordered it.”
“No.”
“Did you?”
I looked down at my hands.
“Yes.”
The wind seemed louder.
Emma’s expression changed slowly, not into horror exactly, but into the disappointment I had learned to fear from her.
“Was he killed?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I stopped it.”
Luke looked at me.
Emma did too.
“I had already given the order.”
I swallowed.
“Then the surgeon came in and told me I would probably never walk again.”
My fingers tightened on the armrest.
“I remember staring at the wall after he left.”
I had not spoken about that hour to anyone.
Not even Luke.
“There was a television on.”
Emma remained motionless.
“A cooking show.”
The detail came back absurdly clear.
“Someone was making pasta.”
I rubbed my thumb over the scar on my palm.
“I could hear Luke on the phone in the hall.”
Luke’s face changed.
“I knew what he was calling about.”
Emma’s voice softened despite herself.
“What did you do?”
“I told him to let Victor live.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer was true.
I looked at her.
“Maybe because I had just lost control of my own body, and killing a man suddenly felt less like control than I had always pretended it was.”
Luke dropped his eyes.
“Victor left Chicago,” I said.
“He has not returned.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Yes.”
Emma stiffened.
“I make sure he stays away.”
The bluntness of it did not help.
“That’s what your world is.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still in it.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Then why bring me here?”
“I didn’t think.”
“That much is obvious.”
“I thought this was safe.”
“You thought because there were guards, it was safe.”
“Yes.”
“And the man with the camera?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Emma looked toward the parking lot.
“So we leave.”
“Yes.”
She nodded once.
That hurt more than anger.
Luke’s phone rang.
He answered immediately.
“Yeah.”
He listened.
His shoulders eased.
“Send it.”
He ended the call and held the phone toward me.
A photo appeared on the screen.
The man from the path stood beside a woman and two children outside a restaurant.
“His name is Aaron Feld,” Luke said.
“He works for the Tribune.”
Emma stared at him.
“A reporter?”
Luke nodded.
“He covers organized crime.”
I looked at the photo.
Of course.
Emma laughed once in disbelief.
“So not a hitman.”
“No.”
“Just someone taking pictures of you with me.”
My stomach dropped for an entirely different reason.
Luke saw it.
“Yeah.”
Emma rubbed both hands over her face.
“Great.”
“I can have someone speak to him.”
Her hands dropped.
“No.”
“He may publish the photo.”
“No one is threatening a reporter because I happened to eat a sandwich with you.”
“I didn’t say threaten.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Luke looked at me.
Emma stepped closer.
“This is exactly what I mean.”
May you like
“What?”
“You don’t know where influence ends and force begins.”
